Adobe Camera Raw 8.4 and Lightroom 5.4 now available

Camera Raw 8.4 is now available as a final release for Photoshop CS6 and Photoshop CC. New features include: new preview controls, red eye correction for pets and updates to Local Corrections. This version also has bug fixes, support for new cameras and new lenses.

Lightroom 5.4 is also now on Adobe.com and available through the update mechanism in the application. It provides support for Lightroom mobile, additional camera raw support, lens profile support and fixes bugs that were introduced in previous releases of Lightroom.

A number of new cameras are now supported, including the Nikon D4s and D3300, Canon PowerShot G1 X Mark II (*), Olympus OM-D E-M10 (*) and Fujifilm X-T1.

Updates to Camera Raw 8 for Photoshop CS6 only include new camera support, lens profile support and bug fixes. The new features listed in the release notes are only available in Photoshop CC.

Note that Camera Raw 8.4 and DNG Converter 8.4 will not work on Windows XP, Windows Vista or Mac OSX 10.6. DNG Converter 8.4 is provided for customers using versions of Photoshop older than Photoshop CS6.

Camera Raw 8.4

Features:

Updates to the Preview Controls. The main idea is a simple “Before/After” set of image settings. Details:

The Preview checkbox has been replaced by three buttons in the bottom-right of the ACR main dialog. From left to right, they are:

Mode: Click this button to cycle through left/right and top/bottom side-by-side and split-view modes. Click-and-hold this button to bring up a popup menu for directly choosing Preview modes and accessing the Preview Preferences. Keyboard shortcut: Press Q to cycle through the Preview modes.

Copy: Click this button to copy the After settings to the Before settings. This is useful for establishing a temporary “checkpoint” for your image editing session. Keyboard shortcut: Press Option-P to copy After settings to the Before settings for the primary selected image only. Press Shift-Option-P to copy After settings to the Before settings for all selected images.

The After preview image always reflects the current slider and tool settings (White Balance, Exposure, etc.).

The standard single-image view always shows the After state.

In the side-by-side and split-view modes, the Before settings are always shown on the left or top, and the After settings are always shown on the right or bottom.

The Preview Preferences dialog supports customizing the Preview modes used for cycling and some drawing options.

When using any tool other than Zoom and Pan (hand) in a side-by-side or split-view, changes are only allowed on the After view. Using the Crop tool will put you back into the standard single-image mode.

Zooming and panning on one view will automatically zoom and pan the other.

Reposition catchlights to create a more natural look by dragging within the overlay that surrounds the catchlight.

Changes to Local Corrections:

Added a mechanism to quickly reset all local correction sliders (Temperature, Exposure, etc.) to zero: right-click on a local adjustment pin and choose “Reset Local Correction Settings” from the context menu. Another way is to click on a local adjustment pin, and then choose “Reset Local Correction Settings” from the flyout menu.

Added “Fill Image” to context menu for Radial Filter. Right-click on a radial filter adjustment pin and choose “Fill Image” from the context menu to resize the radial filter to cover the image area. (Shortcut: double-click inside the ellipse overlay for a radial filter adjustment to accomplish the same task.)

Added “Check All” and “Check None” buttons to Synchronize, New Preset, Save Settings, and Copy/Paste (Bridge) dialog boxes. These are shortcuts for checking all/none of the check boxes.

Added keyboard shortcut: When using the Crop Tool or Straighten Tool, press the X key to flip the crop aspect ratio (landscape to portrait, portrait to landscape).

Added context menu to Histogram pane. The context menu can be used to enable Lab color readouts, even when the Workflow Options are set to another color space (such as Adobe RGB). The context menu and also be used to toggle the shadow, highlight, and gamut clipping warnings.

After installing it my CS6 started acting up. I loaded a RAW file and saved it as PSD. I added layers and adjustments, saving frequently. At one point I was trying to select a portion of one layer and somehow all my layers were cleared. The layers were still there, but the images were all deleted. I clicked Revert to restore the last save but CS6 had already saved the file with the cleared layers even though I did not do that myself. I lost a lot of work on this file. I then noticed that the selection tool was totally effed up as it showed boxes inside of a box, no matter which setting I used. I closed CS6 and reopened it and it seems to be okay now, but I never had any issues like those before, so I think ACR must have been effed up in this release.

Camera Raw 8.4 is also broken on my copy of Bridge CS6. No option to open in Camera Raw when right-clicking a thumbnail, and option is greyed out in File menu. Running Photoshop CS6 Extended on MacOS 10.9.2

Adobe has a fix, it requires replacing the plugin. Check the Adobe Camera Raw forum for and update. They are putting together an email with file links and instructions. The good news is that it does not require a reinstall of CS.

camera raw:after updating, "open in camera raw" is greyed out in bridge, on mac osx 10.9.2, and CS 6..... do you have any advices to get it working again (downgrade or whatever) thanks for answers, max

Looks like you might have already solved your problem, but I've had similar hiccups with LR upgrades in the past (ie. not finding it from within the application). Usually I can find the latest update version for download manually by logging on to my Adobe account then going to "My Orders" for the download link. Cheers

While LR 5.3 claims that no update is available, the Creative Cloud application offers LR 5.4 as new installation instead of an update. Guess someone just botched the update checksum mechanism or something like that, which made 5.4 appear like a new major version.

I updated the ACR 8.4 for my CS6, but I have both good and bad news for you. This update made all my RAW files look so much better in terms of color vibrance on the preview. However, upon opening the RAW file with CR, the color is no where near as good as the preview. Also, it takes forever for Adb Bridge to load the preview for RAW from my Fuji XT-1; some files have no preview at all. In addition, the rotation buttons became unavailable to all the RAW files. I'm waiting for the next update....

Between 4 and 5 - really?They added the smartpreviews, which are, despite somehow halfbacked, a very good feature. The upright perspective correction works extremely well. There is also the really missing aspect slider in the manual perspective correction tool.

The object removable is pretty simple but can be useful. The best for me is are the round shaded working layers, they can be used to add a vignette anywhere in the image. They are the best and quickest way to change exposure in part of the image.

This new 5.4 feels finished, selection of images seems to work as quick as they should.

The core difference is that LR4 works and LR5 does not.I tried 5.2 and 5.3 and none of them worked - they were uninstalled in less than hour. That is the reason I don't buy LR - version 5 just don't work.

I'm currently using Lightroom 4.4 with ACR 7.4. I just ordered an Olympus OMD EM10, so do I have to upgrade/purchase LR 5.4 now to be able to view/import the Oly's Raw files to work? Or is there another update to LR 4 that will work?

Right, if you want to use ACR 8.X to extract raws from that new Olympus, you either have to buy Lightroom 5 or rent PhotoShop CC. (Perhaps one could still buy a PhotoShop CS6 license. Or there’s a limited version of ACR 8 in PhotoShop Elements 12.)

There are other raw extraction options than ACR–for example CaptureOne or DXO.

No, ACR 8.4 is available for PhotoShop CS6 and LightRoom 5.X or ACR Lite for PS Elements 12.

Sometimes the update check within PhotoShop can become corrupted.

That was the case with one of my C clones when ACR 8.4 released, but the other C clone updated correctly the day after release. The solution is to delete a specific folder within the Adobe folder, then a restart rebuilds the folder, sorry but I don't remember the exact name of the folder to delete.

Adobe was a pain but finally gave me the information to fix a corrupted update folder in PhotoShop. Annoyingly Adobe had at first insisted that I had to re-install PhotoShop CS6 in its entirely. I pointed out that was a way to lose regular customers real quickly--and that it was no longer the year 1997.

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